Tourist information on the Canary Islands

There is one hour less between the Canary Islands and Western Europe (Central European Time, CET), including mainland Spain. The Canary Islands are at the same time that Portugal and the islands to the west of Europe: Great Britain, Ireland and Iceland (Western European Time, WET).

The climate of the Canary Islands is broadly Mediterranean type modified with African influences (dry winds) and trade winds.

Summers are generally very hot, dry and warm, wet winters but with many variations.

The most appropriate way to present all the islands is described as a succession of microclimates ranging from 0 m to approximately 4000 m altitude. Indeed, the Canary Islands are near the Tropic of Cancer. Although the climate is appropriate to the latitude desert-like, the reality is quite different. They are located in the middle of the Atlantic, swept by the trade winds and exposed to cold ocean currents that bathe their coasts.

The trade winds blowing from northeast provide a permanent moisture coming from the sea, very important to the islands to the west (Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro). The mountains form a barrier, stopping the clouds and allow the emergence of rainfall between 800 and 1,500, allowing the establishment of evergreen forest.

The islands east, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, and the south of Gran Canaria, beyond the influence of the trade winds except the upper parts (Jandia in Fuerteventura and Famara in Lanzarote). The harmatan, dry wind from the Sahara is the cause of these islands a great dry climate.

The coldest month is February with an average temperature of 18 °C and the hottest months, July to September, with an average between 20 °C and 25 °C for the Western Isles. On the eastern islands, semi-desert, average summer temperatures reach 35 °C. It is remarkable that the temperature differences are around at least 10 °C between the north and south coasts because of the trade winds that moderate the climate.

Regarding the precipitation rate, it varies with the regions, between 300 mm (in the lowlands) and 500 mm (in the higher regions). Sometimes a hot wind of desert type (calima) disturbs the followers of the god Helios. With all this and the 300 days of sun per year, the climate of the Canary Islands is considered one of the nicest in the world.